


Cleaning Up

by Atropos_lee



Series: Watching [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-14
Updated: 2006-12-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:03:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atropos_lee/pseuds/Atropos_lee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Cyberwoman -and Ianto Jones has a long and lonely job ahead of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cleaning Up

The cold concrete rasped his knuckles to the bone, until it seemed that as fast as he could scrape up dried blood, tissue and hair, he was smearing more of his own onto the floor. The soap and bleach burned his hands, almost as fiercely as saltwater burned his eyes and cheeks. And Ianto Jones knelt and scrubbed, and the cold slime of lemon scent, blood and filth soaked into his ruined trousers.

The Captain had placed the bucket in his hands; “This morning, Mr Jones, you clean up your own shit", and gestured to the yawning darkness of the basement. The others were suddenly engrossed in their work – even that cow-eyed policewoman had the grace not to burden him with the weight of her sympathy as he passed.

Below, he discovered that Torchwood had already done their work. The bodies were gone, leaving only the sticky black pools of their passing. The frame – her frame - lay in pieces, neatly stacked, but his chair and lamp were overturned, kicked to the wall. This is what burglary must feel like, a home trashed, smeared and stinking.

For a few nights in the past year, those scant hours when the hub had emptied, when even Jack had left, to do whatever Jack did in the dark hours, this basement had felt like a home. Sitting in the circle of lamplight, reading aloud, a cup steaming on the table beside him. Until Lisa told him that the smell of coffee made her nauseous.

His flayed hands bled. His knees bled. His eyes burned. His nose ran. And still he scrubbed, inch by inch, foot by foot, bucket by bucket, cleaning his home. Except Jack was right. This was his shit. Other people’s blood, but his shit. He was scrubbing away the stains before Torchwood erased him.

It was the watch that undid him, unmarked and shining except for broken strap and the smashed glass on the heart-shaped face. The sort of gift bought from a catalogue, the sort of thing which Lisa would have loathed, but an 18 year old would wear because she loved her mum.

Ianto retched but there was nothing left in him to bring up – no bile, no tears. Lisa was dead, and he was not, boiled dry by his loathing.

“Feeling better now?” 

Ianto’s hand closed over the watch, to hide it, but the broken glass stung, and despite himself he flinched. How long had Harkness been watching him? There was a handkerchief in front of his face, huge, clean, incongruous and smelling of sunlight. The thought of touching it made his skin crawl. He would have spit at it, if he had had saliva left, but instead he took it, and felt an incongruent stab of jealousy. Who launders for Jack Harkness? What keeps his hands so fucking spotless?

“Clean yourself up,” Harkness tossed a bundle of clothing onto the floor in front of him, “and be in my office in ten minutes. And Ianto…”

“…sir?”

“Burn the suit. It stinks.”

+++

The hub had its own rhythms and scents, independent of the humans who passed through it, and after a year Ianto knew them to the minute. Stone contracting and expanding, the tick of the mainframe, the changing quality of air from the Plas. As good as a clock. It was well past midnight. The workstations were dark and silent. The only light spilled from Harkness’s office. Just like a hundred other nights, when he had waited in the silence, for that light to go out, so that he finally go home to Lisa. Or the nights when the light stayed on, and Ianto always found some compelling reason linger in that office, to be in that other, warmer, circle of lamplight, forgetful for just a few minutes. It was one of the few places where he had felt safe enough to sleep, but of course, he never had. On those nights he showered, afterwards, so that Lisa would never smell anything other than soap on his skin when he kissed her good night. 

In a few minutes it would be over. He would be on ice, in the vault, next to Lisa, and it wouldn’t hurt anymore. With luck his boss would have the kindness not to waste the last few minutes of his life lecturing him. It’s not as they talked before, so why should he have to listen now. Although better that than retcon, and a daft puzzled look on his face when he died. Going to his death wearing his executioner’s cast-offs, hanging in ridiculous folds of wool and cotton around his hips, was humiliation enough. 

Harkness didn’t look up. He was engrossed in a file – Ianto’s own file, although he barely recognised himself any longer in the photograph clipped to the cover. 

“Sit” 

“I’d rather stand, sir, if you don’t mind.”

“Now, this is enlightening reading. You were an Administrative Assistant at Torchwood One. Recruited straight from Oxford, via Adecco, on a temporary contract. Six months later you are one of only 27 employees to survive the Battle of Canary Wharf. Either you run fast, or you hide well, or you are very smart... Know what I think?”

“You know better than almost anyone still living what Cybermen do. What they are. And despite that you brought one of those things into my place. You smuggled a fully functioning Cyber conversions unit into your workplace, reconstructed it and powered it up for over 10 months, putting at risk everyone you worked with. You hid yourself from all of us for 14 months. From me… Frankly your judgement stinks, Mr Jones.” 

“Just get it over with. I don’t need know how ‘disappointed’ you are with me. Sir.”

“Oh, sit down, and shut up. “ Ianto’s legs folded under him before he could protest, and it would just look foolish to struggle to his feet again. Harkness flung down the file, stretched back in his chair, met Ianto’s eyes for the first time. “I always suspected you could run rings around anyone of them...” he jerked his head to towards the darkened workstations. “...if you tried, but this is - magnificent. Stupid, and magnificent. Ianto Jones, you conned me. You sweetly sucked my dick, and conned me, and I’m not only very pissed off, but very, very impressed. So, what am I to do with you?” The smile was disconcerting, wolfish, and Ianto was actually afraid for the first time. “The first man to con Captain Jack Harkness in, oh, well let's just say it's been a long time. You’ve got world-class balls, kid. By rights, I should wipe a few years of your memory, and kick you out of here. But you’re too dangerous to walk the streets, and far too good to waste. So, here it is, here's the deal, one time only offer. Your file continues to list you as Executive Assistant, Torchwood pays for those nice suits, you go on keeping the diary, filing and making coffee. But, after hours, you work with me - applying those devious lying talents to some special projects I have in hand. Watch, listen, learn - and don’t share. This stays between you and me. You had firearms training?”

“Of course not.” 

“Figures. I’ll free up some private time on the range… you’ll need it if you are going into the field.”

“…I”

“What? You’ve got any other career plans, right now? Your life full of possibilities, people to see, colleagues to screw over? No, I thought not. Go back whatever postcode we deliver your payslip too, and get some sleep. I want you back in on Monday with a full report on the security weaknesses you exploited to get it that thing in here, and recommendations on how we close them. Then we start.” Harkness closed the file, swept it into the drawer and snapped it shut. " Cheer up. It’s not as if you’ll have to pretend to actually like me any more.”

Ianto thought it was impossible to hate anyone as much as this. “Have you ever loved anyone, Jack Harkness?” He watched something dark flicker in his eyes, and the smile faded. If I’m lucky he might just kill me after all. “Have you? Enough to want to die for them… instead of them? Or are you just a killer. Tell me how to look into the face of someone who trusts you, enough to sleep naked next to you - and blow a hole in their head?”

“You tell me.” Harkness unhooked the gun at his side, placed it on the desk between them and opened his arms. “Give it your best shot, Ianto. You know you want to. Here’s your chance to show you’ve got the balls. Pick it up. You were waving it around happily enough last night. Look me in the eye and pull the trigger…” 

Ianto remembered the weight and warmth in his hands, and felt a heavy unexpected twitch of desire which disgusted him. He nudged the gun aside with distaste. “Where did you put her?”

“She’s in the vault. She’ll stay here, with us – just as, one day, you will, and Owen, and Toshiko, and Gwen…”

“And you…”

“Yeah, maybe, one day, me too. All tucked up in the bosom of Torchwood. “ Harkness picked up the gun, re-holstered it. “I read her file. People liked her. I wish I’d met her… before. We lost so many people that day, that the missing were listed with the dead.- in ‘the line of duty’ – I think that citation should stand, don’t you? As far as anyone will ever know, Lisa Hallett died in Torchwood Tower, defending the earth.”

“Can I leave now, Sir?”

“...Ok, go.”

Ianto rose, aching every where, but numb. Dying would have been easier than this, shuffling out in borrowed clothes out with no home to go to. 

“Wait...” Harness's arm barred his path, held the door shut. For a heartbeat Ianto thought he felt fingers brush his shoulder. He glared, and Jack backed off, just a little. “, “Ianto ... Think about it. You could spend another 50 years alone, holding on to secrets before you find someone to share them with, and they’ll eat you up. Or you can come in here on Monday, and start something new, – and oh, the things I can show you, the places I’ve seen, the times... things no one else on earth has seen. Admit it. However you feel now, you want to know.”

“God, this isn’t something that anyone can just ‘kiss better’”.

“I lost someone in Torchwood One. Someone I once thought was worth dying for...”

Ianto felt a sudden icy draught, as if a door into the abyss had opened up behind him. Inside Jack Harkness, who had never seemed more monstrous- or more human.

“And was he…?”

“He…? She. She was younger than Lisa. Younger than you.”

“But worth dying for.”

“I don’t know. Is anyone? But everyday I think of her, sliced away from herself, like your friend. I don’t know if I could have killed her.“ That brush of fingers again, the only human fingers that had touched Ianto Jones in over a year. “But, then, I don’t know if I would have had the balls to try to save her either…” 

“Please…Jack... let me go.”

“Trust me on this - time changes everything, in the end.” Jack stepped back. “Go. Sleep if you can. And have that report on my desk at 8.30 on Monday morning.”


End file.
